Advice column #21: Mixing family and money

This month, the advice columnist answers a question about housing, finances and sibling estrangement.

Q: Last year, my mom offered to buy the house I was in, as rents had increased x5/6 and also as an investment for her. My mom told my siblings and were they furious, both stopped talking to me. My sister started contact after 6 months and doesn’t see like she did another wrong. My brother is still blanking me and demanding to know how I could do this. No matter what I say he doesn’t accept it as an answer. He has since had a baby and didn’t even reply to my messages of congratulations. It’s like I don’t exist.

A: Hi there, friend,

Thank you so much for writing in.

There’s a common piece of advice that says ‘you should never mix money and family:’ I don’t believe that’s quite true, but money can make interpersonal relationships a lot more complicated, and bring a whole lot of unspoken assumptions to the table. 

So let’s dive right into it. 

First of all, I want to acknowledge that we (generally speaking, on a societal level, and often on a family level as well) are pretty terrible at talking about money. 

How many of us avoid talking about our salary with our coworkers (even when having a frank conversation can improve overall salaries and pay equity on the workplace), or skirt around discussions of how much it cost to buy that new jacket/take that trip/do a home renovation/get a university degree, or treat our savings accounts and retirement plans as a closely-guarded secret even within our own families?

Conversations about money are a spectrum, of course, and you’ve got to know your audience: If you’ve got a stable job with a high income and plenty of breathing room in your budget, maybe your friend who’s struggling to make ends meet shouldn’t always be the person you’re complaining to about the cost of renting a cottage for lakeside vacations. And, conversely, just because somebody seems to make good money on paper doesn’t mean that they have as much ‘extra’ left over in their budget as you might think — you don’t always know what hidden expenses people are dealing with in private, whether that’s paying off debt today or saving for medical issues likely to cost more in the future.

But when it comes to the plain facts of my own money, I’m generally a big fan of open conversations: ‘I make X,’ ‘this cost Y,’ ‘I had help paying for Z,’ ‘I was able to prioritize THIS because I decided not to spend on/save for THAT’ …

And, relatedly, whenever I’m looking at a thorny interpersonal problem where finances are involved, I tend to think it’s helpful to start from the premise that it’s (almost) never just about the cash itself: Money is a placeholder. 

Money is a placeholder for opportunity — the chance to do fun stuff; to do important stuff; to take a risk on something that might not pay off. 

Money is a placeholder for safety and stability — if I have money in my pocket, I can turn that into a rent payment, a utility bill, groceries in my cupboard, a doctor’s visit, medicine from the pharmacy. 

Money is a placeholder for time — There’s time that you turn into money during every workday (if you work), and money that you can turn back into time (i.e., ordering in food when you don’t want to spend a night cooking; hiring someone to do your taxes because you trust their expertise and you’ve got better and less stressful ways to spend your April).

Money is a placeholder for the future — if I’m able to save toward retirement, I can start thinking and planning for those years and (hopefully) decades where I won’t be working anymore, and I can know I’ll be okay. 

Sometimes (though I truly wish it weren’t), money can also be used as a placeholder for love, approval, well-wishes, emotional closeness …

And so on, so forth. 

When I read your question, the first thing that stood out to me is — this seems like a situation where a fairly significant amount of money is involved. So I wonder, what does this money actually represent for you, your mom, and for each of your siblings?

You may not know all the answers — especially for people other than yourself, and who you can’t ask directly — but I think it’s still worth thinking about. 

It seems like you’ve already had this conversation with your mom, and she’s told you why she wants to do this. But how do you feel about your mom making you this offer? And did your siblings ever actually tell you why they’re mad at you over this? If so, what do you think about their perspective? Does it make sense to you? Can you see where they’re coming from, or does it seem totally out of left field?

Now, I don’t know what your siblings think or feel about this situation — I haven’t heard from them, and of course I can’t read their minds. 

But I can think of a few reasons why a person (rightly or wrongly) might be upset to see one of their siblings getting this kind of a financial leg up. 

For one, your siblings might be concerned about what this means for your mom’s future financial situation, and whether this means that she’ll be worse-off as she gets older. It sounds as though your mom is thinking of this house as an investment property for her: But, has she crunched the numbers on what kind of return-on-investment she’s expecting? Would you have a rental agreement with her? Who would be responsible for property upkeep, maintenance and repairs?

And, one of the really big questions to consider in this situation: What happens if your mom wants or needs to sell the house, or move in herself? 

If your siblings are worried that this plan would leave your mom in a worse financial situation, and she feels confident that it wouldn’t, I would hope that her showing them how she’s crunched the numbers and planned for contingencies would set their minds at ease. 

I think it’s also possible that your siblings are feeling hard-done-by in this arrangement. Even if the three of you are close in age and all grew up in the same household, you might have very different relationships with money and with access to parental support. 

So, one question I’m wondering about: Is your mom’s offer here a one-off thing just for you, or is this part of a pattern? And, have your siblings had access to the same kind(s) of support during their own big life-milestone moments?

It’s very natural for parental support to vary between kids, even with the best of intentions. Sometimes, kids are born when a family has more or less money, or simply need more of the family’s overall resources while they’re growing up and launching into their independent lives. And sometimes, parents don’t necessarily think through what they’re spending on their kids as carefully as they probably could, to avoid (or, at least, mitigate the effects of) a big disparity. 

If you happened to grow up with more stability and opportunities than your siblings, and/or if you’ve needed more financial help than they did, of course that’s not your fault: You were a kid! You all were! You’re not responsible for the state of your family’s bank accounts! If that is the case, though, I think you can also see how a situation like this still might feel viscerally unfair.

And after you’ve you’ve done all this work to think it through, run the balance sheets and listen to your siblings from their point(s) of view, this whole situation will come down to this question:

What is it worth to you?

If taking your mom up on her offer — a big financial boost for you; making it much more possible for you to keep living in your neighbourhood and be a part of this community — means a more distant relationship with your siblings, is it worth it?

If you say no to your mom’s suggestion — and wind up spending much more money on rent, and possibly moving away to a lower cost-of-living area — is it worth it for the chance that your siblings might not be so angry with you in the future?

There are no objectively right or wrong answers, and only you can decide how you want to balance the scales. 

I hope, whatever you choose, your life feels richer for it.

Take good care,

Hila

---

Hila (any pronouns) is the Advice Columnist for the Together Estranged Newsletter. They have been happily estranged for a number of years, and now live with their chosen family and beloved, silly dog in rural Canada. They have a background in mental health, peer support, writing and journalism. Outside of work, Hila can be found recreating desserts from The Great British Bake Off, running on the beautiful trails near their home, singing show tunes, and learning to knit.

---

Please Note: The peer to peer Advice Columnist is not a licensed mental health professional; this is not medical advice. If you are in crisis or you think you may have an emergency, please go to your local urgent care center to talk to a professional counselor.

The views and opinions expressed by Advice Columnists are those of the Advice Columnists and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Together Estranged.